In order to obtain a permanent residence permit according to the Upper Secondary School Act, a person now needs to have started a job that can earn a living before the person concerned’s temporary permit expires, instead of as before when the Migration Agency made a decision on the matter.
This after the Migration Court came down with a verdict.
— The Migration Court of Appeal says that the law must be interpreted restrictively because it is an exception to the main rule, that a permit must be granted before entering the country. And that this interpretation is closer to the wording of the provision, says the Swedish Migration Agency’s legal director Carl Bexelius.
The migration area more complex
The fact that there has been a narrower interpretation right now, even though the law has been in force for several years, may be due to the fact that the rules in the area of migration have become more complex, says Bexelius, because they are then at the same time more difficult to apply.
— In this case, special rules have been drawn up for a certain group that constitute an exception in relation to how the rules are otherwise designed. It must have taken a certain amount of time before it was seen that this guidance was needed.
A reasonable conclusion from the new interpretation is that more people will have their applications rejected, says Bexelius.
— Some of them will be able to apply for asylum instead, but some of them have a deportation order at the bottom and they cannot apply for asylum again.
A majority of those who have received permission from the upper secondary school are citizens of Afghanistan. With the change in practice, this could mean that more people will receive deportation orders there.
— We apply the practice that is done within the EU’s asylum agency, which says that women and girls risk persecution there and are not deported. In addition, there are different types of vulnerable groups in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover, it is a gray scale you could say.
The Green Party’s migration policy spokesperson Annika Hirvonen, who helped draft the law, is critical of the sudden change in interpretation.
— This is a group that has been through so many different interpretations of the regulations, now they are pulling the rug out from under them again. It is a vulnerable group.
TT: Should the Migration Court take that into account?
— I think you should do that, at least give them a residence permit due to particularly painful circumstances.
Want to change the regulations
TT: The Green Party was the driving force in drafting this law, why didn’t you draft the law in the way you think it should be interpreted?
— The design of the legislation is very much a result of what was possible to achieve based on those with whom we collaborated. It is a law that does not fulfill all the wishes that we in the Green Party had, says Hirvonen.
When asked if Hirvonen’s criticism of an individual sentence is justified, she says:
— That as a politician you want to achieve something, and then it doesn’t happen, for example because a court made a certain interpretation, then as a politician you have to act to change the regulations, and I will do that.